The Lightning Mage

26 | The Hiatus, Part III

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It took Neil much longer than expected to find a bar now that they were away from the touristy parts of Miami—which meant a total of five minutes walking one street down. The entrance of the bar was enshrouded in fake palm leaves, with a giant plastic sign pinned above them, screaming, "Ooh Mami Mami!" The tacky font and neon pink color gave Lyn a headache, but despite her protests, the copper-skinned man dragged her in anyway.

After pulling out as much water as they can from their clothes and hair, they settled down at a table amidst the waiters' disgruntled stares. As Neil placed a quick order for them, Lyn slumped onto the table and pulled on her braid.

"Argh, we got nowhere again." She drummed her fingers on the table in frustration. She had already wasted three months in jail, and then one more month at home to placate her overly-attached parents; she could not afford to waste any more time running in circles.

For the past two months, Lyn and Neil had been going around the entire country, and even neighboring countries, to search for clues about Han's whereabouts. That elusive man had zero records, with no paper or magic trails whatsoever; every one of their leads had led them to a dead end.

Lyn let out a long, hard sigh. Maybe she should have given that timid manager a tiny electric shock to the brain, maybe that would have triggered his memories a little better...

"Don't look so down, Lyn." Neil chuckled. "We actually got some good information this time."

"Really?" Lyn grumbled. "That idiot didn't know shit, I thought it was all useless information."

"No, far from it." Neil leaned back against the chair and lifted his fingers up as he counted. "First of all, we now know that he's Chinese and that his name has three characters and ends with the word Han. This is way more useful than the vague description you gave me: an 'Asian dude who's cocky as hell'."

He laughed at Lyn's embarrassed groan, before continuing, "Secondly, we now know that he's insanely rich, or at least backed by someone insanely rich; that narrows down things a lot. Lastly, and most importantly, we learned that he has a motive, and that is to look for some kind of treasure."

Lyn frowned. "Why do you think that was his motive? David said Han was only looking for treasure occasionally. His main goal is challenging people to duels."

"That may appear to be the case, but according to David, Han has been winning every single duel. After he loses for the first time, he immediately stops dueling." Neil folded his arms. "That screams to me that he's only dueling to feed his ego. There's most likely no other purpose to his duels; he doesn't seem to be getting fame or money from the duels, so he's not like a regular challenger. Therefore, I'm pretty sure his real motive is to actually find whatever treasure he's looking for, and the duels are just, sort of like, his side project, his little ego-boosting fun."

"Hm." Lyn was still not convinced. "But what kind of treasure is he looking for?"

Treasure hunts were the oldest form of quests, but Lyn barely knew anything about them. In fact, she couldn't even bring herself to believe in them; they often sounded too much like myths and legends, like the made-up stories of elixirs of life or philosopher's stones.

"I don't know, but he didn't bother registering with the QA at all, which tells us two things: the treasure he's looking for is either something that is obscenely difficult and dangerous to obtain, such that the QA will never want to try and insure a quest for it, or that it is a treasure that is not appreciated by the QA at all." Neil flashed Lyn a proud grin. "Essentially, he's looking for something very niche, and if we can figure out what treasure he's looking for, we can find him."