40 Beginning of a Plo

The realization of his own ignorance hurt for once.

It was not that he felt hurt for being wrong, but he instead felt bad for wronging Ayesha.

Understanding how he had misjudged Ayesha, Dean went back to bed as caressed Ayesha's head softly.

Guilt overrode and stomped his heart, crushing his consciousness for each time his hand rested upon Ayesha's head.

At the age of 16, Dean had finally realized what a terrifying thing, guilt can be.

But this was another enlightenment that furthered his hatred for Christian.

Even when he was a child, Christian could ruthlessly kill his friend without wincing and in 6 years he must have become a lot worse.

Dean took a deep breath to claim his calmness back but it had the reverse effect.

...

Waking out of her slumber, Ayesha saw Dean dozing off mindlessly and felt released of all the pressure she had.

She consoled herself that this fate was slightly better than a one with Christian.

When they were children, Christian would tend to visit her house because of family matters.

Acting as a kind and considerate child, her parents would adore him but Ayesha already saw the wickedness behind that false mask.

He would show off his fragile masculinity by beating up workers in her family to earn some sort of amazement from Ayesha.

What made it even worse is that the workers would never tell her parents as they were afraid of offending someone in greater power.

Only when she had grown up to be a little mature did she learn that Christian was not someone trustworthy.

Although she knew that, Ayesha couldn't do anything as her parents were too blinded.

She was stuck in a jail cell with little to do.

Telling the truth would cause punishment and hiding will do nothing.

Recounting that horrible memory, Ayesha sighed hoping things would improve with this investment.

Dean had saw the way Ayesha had sighed, setting off a wave in his conscious.

'Was I not adequate enough?'

Ayesha had removed herself from the proximity of Dean as she began getting change to exit the hotel.

Dean wanted to grasp Ayesha's hand before she left but he instead sat there on the bed.

Leaving himself time for contemplation

...

Anne, Pierre, Dean and Ayesha had gathered around a small wooden stump in the forest.

They argued over what tactics they could use to bring down Christian's tyranny.

Overall there three main ideas they had come up with in their time.

The first, was that they would poison Christian. A mysterious substance that could make a person's health slowly deteriorate when taken in small consumption over a long period of time.

The second, lure Christian to a hidden location and kill him.

Both of these two plans were good in of itself however there was one main problem that they would face.

How strong is Christian?

No one knew.

Ayesha did not know what cultivation level he was due to the fact that she had manage to stay away from him during her time at school.

To make matters even more disappointing was that even Anne and Pierre didn't know.

This one unknown information cause immense worry for Dean as he guessed that Christian may have used external items such as pills to propel his cultivation.

If those materials are paired up with a good cultivation manual then Dean wouldn't be surprised if Christian was at the Spiritual Transformation level.

Plan one could work as he had Leonard on his side to probably create a strong poison.

With the materials from the Earth Endowing Tortoise and the promised pills, Dean thought that he could possibly trade those in for a deadly poison.

However because he didn't consult with Leonard beforehand, Dean was not confident in his skills in creating poison.

He knew that Leonard is highly skilled in alchemy with great benefits for a cultivator but wasn't sure of the opposite end.

Therefore, the first plan didn't seem like it could work.

Dean has seen Christian attempt to escape twice and had one success.

Christian seemed to love weird talismans as he used those talismans to escape a battle if he felt the situation was too dire.

The first time this happened was with the fight against a golem and the second time was against a Spiritual Transformation Beast

If they wanted to use the second plan then that means they must have an array, similar to what the golem had that is able to restrict the use of talismans.

Finding a person who was an expert in arrays and was willing to keep a shut mouth would be extremely difficult.

What made it more difficult besides an Array Master was having the ability to get Christian alone.

From Anne and Pierre's experience.

Christian will usually hang out with Rose and any friends in order to strengthen bonds while keeping his romance alive.

It was very common to see him reviewing papers of the Autarch Society's funding in the library.

With all this information combined, Dean came to the conclusion that it was very unlikely for Christian to go outside of school areas.

Because of that, they couldn't bring Christian to a "hidden location"

Finally it came to the third plan that Dean was most insistent on.

Anne, Pierre and Ayesha were easily persuaded as this idea was the most flexible yet vague plan that had a lot of room to change.

The very last idea was:

Kill with a borrowed knife.

Why should they put their lives in danger when they can spark conflict between Christian and a third party who would willing do all the work.

Even if this third party wasn't willing to kill Christian, Dean could at least learn a bit about Christian if they manage to put him on the edge of trouble.

Altogether they agreed to this one plan and started investing.

Dean wanted to talk with Ayesha and held onto her shoulder but she immediately brushed it off.

Glaring, she told Dean

"This is just business."