Ning's answer had Betty in shock.
"What?" Betty sounded almost angry. She could not imagine someone who was so praised by everyone could do something so idiotic. "How can you not filter your students based on anything? You are giving away a big secret. Are you not scared that they will take them and run away?"
Emma looked at Betty and then turned to her Father. "She's right, Papa. What if there are spies in this lot? Have you done something about that?"
"Spies?" Ning asked incredulously. "Do you two think me stupid? Of course, I'm aware that spies would join us if I made it free. I haven't grown stupid."
"Then?" Betty asked. "Why is it still an open application for anyone that wants to join?"
"Because spies wouldn't stop me," Ning said. "I'm going to teach them enough that they will come out of this as much better Converters than before, but not all of what I know so that they would always be a few steps behind. I'm not going to create competition for myself until they're grown to gain my trust."
"Oh…" Betty's emotions calmed a little. "As long as you've thought things through, I suppose that is alright." "Of course I have," Ning said, laughing out loud. "Did you girls think I wouldn't know the others would send spies?"
"I mean… you said you didn't filter anyone, so I kind of assumed…" Betty trailed off, not knowing how to hide her embarrassment. Her small, but vocal outburst seemed so unnecessary now.
"I don't filter, because there is no need to," Ning repeated. "Besides, I know who all the spies are."
"What?" Betty asked in surprise.
"Yes," Ning said, turning around toward the young man who seemed focused on converting the small fire in front of him. "Praal, you're a spy for the Ember's Tear, aren't you?"
The man named Praal panicked for just a moment and the fire he had been gathering burst away from him, disappearing all of a sudden.
"W-what? Me? No, master. I'm not—"
"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Don't lie now," Ning said and turned around. "Hayna, you work for Lord Barphal, don't you?"
A girl to the side looked around with wide eyes, not daring to speak at all.
"Little Jever over there was sent by his mother, Lady Gransel. Tommus is a spy for the Sun's Love. So is Gober, Olivia, Bavin, and Astra."
"Wavil works for Knight's Gear, and so does Trummul and Paulrus. Hell, Gemma over there was sent by the Knight's Gear too, but she was already a spy there sent by Lady Leonna to find out what gender discrimination goes on in the workshop."
"And then over here is the people from King's Gem…"
Ning continued naming multiple people, most of them spies for some noble family, the government, or one of the 4 big Artifact shops. Surprisingly, there were also spies from other nations such as Azurage, SnowDen, the Republic of Kruz, and various others.
Ning's shop, Heeran's Love, had long since gone international, and individuals from all over the world came to them every day to find weapons that would fit them. If none did, they could have one tailor-made for them.
The thing that made Heeran's Love the most sought-after shop was the fact that along with ordering a weapon of their demand, they could also have the weapon have a technique carved into it that could do incredible things.
The weirder the request was, the more expensive it became, but the rich people never cared.
Some of the most incredible days of the last few weeks for Ning had been when he had been requested for some very specific technique, one that did not exist in the System's database.
It had been so many years since he had to create techniques using his system to fit the client's criteria. The last time he remembers doing this was back in the universe with Qi where people requested some rather odd artifacts to be made.
The island was eerily silent once Ning was done naming the names of all the spies. Everyone had stopped working and were either staring at Ning or trying not to catch his eyes.
Ning looked around, frowning. "What's wrong? Start working! Or do you want me to kick you all out right now?" he shouted.
"No, master!" the people shouted and went back to work.
Ning finally looked back at Betty. "So, does that work for you?"
Betty swallowed a bit, trying to hide a grim smile. "Yes," she said softly. "My apologies. I dared to question your ways."
"Oh, don't apologize. You only tried to help me," Ning said. "Come on, let's go else where."
They walked out of the camp and on the way, they met Lory who was running toward them. "Sister!" "Lory!" Emma took the little cub into an embrace and introduced him to Betty. "Ah, Lyra's twin? He's cute," Betty said.
Randal walked toward them slowly. "He suddenly ran off when he found out you were back," he said, walking toward the group. "He looks quite happy today. I don't think I've seen the little beast this excited ever. He seemed particularly depressed once that boy left."
"Boy?" Emma asked.
"The one that your father taught or something," Randal said. "I don't know if I should even consider it teaching, considering what he did to that poor kid."
"Hadden?" Emma turned toward Ning. "What did you do to Hadden? Where is he?" Ning shrugged. "He was beaten enough, so I sent him to Origin to start his actual training. He will stay there for as long as it takes for him to complete his training.
"Oh, you finally decided to stop torturing him," Emma said. "That kid got beat up way too much. Hopefully, it will do him some good."
"I'm sure it will do him great," Ning said. "I've given him the best direction I could after all."
Emma shrugged. "If you say so," she said. "If he's going to start training now, I'm afraid he's going to become one hell of a menace to everyone that will want to antagonize him."
