68 I Dare You

Stella held the frown on her face for multiple moments as she thought of the reason for her disconnection. The black Qi that she had been given from James was still within her body but the tracker she had placed in his knowledge sea had been destroyed and made its way back to her.

For someone to have not only found the tracker but also broken it she assumed they must have been much stronger than herself since she was sure that the tracker was the best thing she could do, 'Who dares get in my way of meeting him?' Stella thought to herself in anger as she tried to stop the raging Qi within her body.

The black Qi had covered about 20% of her Dantian as of the last few minutes but with her Qi raging like this for James, it quickly spread at an even faster rate going all the way to 45% within the span of a few minutes.

When Stella was finally able to calm herself she returned to her usual smile before she began plotting what to do next in her mind, "It will be ok. I've been without him for this long so I can wait a little longer to make sure things are perfect. I will see him tomorrow at the arena so I should be able to talk with him and be able to tell who broke my tracker." Stella thought to herself as she held her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth crazily.

****

After James, Noel, and Cara reconnected they spent the night chatting before eating dinner with the rest of the group that came with them. The hotel they were staying in had a large dining room on the first floor that could be rented by groups of people and that night Patriarch Colton told them that he would have it available to everyone who wanted to join.

Luckily everyone who was from their sect showed up allowing for an interesting bonding experience, "So Patriarch how did you meet that man Marcus from before?" Robert the Core Disciple who was participating in the tournament asked as he ate the chicken leg in his hand.

Patriarch Colton chuckled at this before looking to his left at Matriarch Hannah, "You want me to explain it? Fine. When we were younger that man named Marcus was in a friend group with me Colton and one other girl. During our early sect days, we all traveled together and did every mission together. It wasn't until we all became Core Disciple that the other two went their own ways and we decided to stay for our entire lives." Matriarch Hannah chuckled as she scooted ever so closer to Patriarch Colton who smiled.

James smiled at this story as he secretly considered Patriarch Colton's and Matriarch Hannah's long relationship a goal of his with his wives in the future. They may not want to rule a sect or something like that but he wanted to be happy with them just as long and even longer than Patriarch Colton.

"I see, well what happened to the other girl then?" Seele asked suddenly speaking up for the first time in a long time. She was often the shy girl in the corner of the room choosing not to speak but this time she seemed to have a random sense of determination.

Matriarch Hannah was caught slightly off guard by the question so Patriarch Colton spoke for her with a frown, "Well, to be honest, we don't really know where she went. She told us she was heading north and would be back at some point but she has been gone ever since. We assumed she either died or found a reason not to come back." Patriarch Colton admitted making everyone in the room listening momentarily shocked.

They all had no idea that this story had a dark counter piece to it, "Have you tried searching for her?" James suddenly asked as he felt if it were someone close to him he would do anything to find them.

"We tried multiple times and even went as far as the sects far far away to find her but found nothing. The only information we found was that she passed through a few places long ago and hasn't been seen since." Patriarch Colton explained before they all went back to eating on a slightly sad note.

The sad note continued for many minutes until Robert posed a question once again, "With the games starting tomorrow is everyone here prepared?" Robert asked bringing attention to himself while he seemed to be staring straight at James.

"I am."

"I believe so."

"Me too." James answered last while the other participants quickly gave their nods of approval as well showing that they were prepared both mentally and physically.

However, despite James' affirmation Robert continued to stare at him clearly not convinced that James was ready for the fight ahead of them. This made Noel mad as she could clearly tell what he was doing.

"Boy if you make that face for another 5 seconds I'm going to kill you." Noel said with the most predatory eyes Robert had ever seen. He suddenly felt as if thousands of needles were trained on his skin barely pushing but enough that he could feel it.

This was the Qi needles covering his body that Noel had put on there when no one was looking. She actually had them all over the room in case anyone tried anything funny on James for whatever reason.

The only person that wasn't covered besides herself and James was actually Cara showing that Noel was slowly beginning to trust Cara in one form or another.

Robert choked on the words about to come out of his mouth when he felt the needles and everyone in the room became alert but didn't make a move as they all knew she was the most powerful one in the room.

In addition, Patriarch Colton knew that James and Cara would come to her aid if all of them were to attack and he hated to admit it but he was absolutely sure that they would lose to James and his wives if they were to have an all-out fight.