Lux as his personal sponsor?
Jayce blinked, staring blankly at the smiling young girl in front of him, momentarily at a loss for words.
"I already have a sponsor; the Kiramman family is stable and generous." After a long pause, he stammered again, "Thank you very much for your appreciation, Miss Lux—but if I can't get approval from the council, I won't be able to set up a private laboratory in Piltover, even with a sponsor..."
"If you can't do it in Piltover, then why not try Zaun?" Lux dropped another bombshell. "Compared to the passable Piltover, Zaun is where magic is truly needed."
"How is that possible?!" Jayce blurted out instinctively. "Miss Lux, it's fine if you don't want to help, but you don't need to mock me with Zaun—what kind of people are those guys in the Dark Alley? They're uneducated, lawless, and disrespectful of knowledge. If it weren't for some Zaunite brat, my laboratory wouldn't have been blown up!"
Jayce became agitated talking about Zaun. Perhaps it was due to the alcohol he had just consumed, but his face was flushed, and he made no attempt to hide his disdain for Zaun.
"Those guys in the garbage dump are just a bunch of bugs destined to wallow in the mud. If Miss Lux thinks my idea is far-fetched, you can just say so; you don't need to use those Zaunites to mock me!"
Jayce's words made Lux sigh helplessly.
Yesterday, she had witnessed the Zaunites' attitude towards Piltover citizens, and today, she saw the Piltover citizens' attitude towards Zaunites.
Initially, when Jayce said, "Bring magic to everyone with Hextech," Lux even thought he would be the same kind of person as her. But after he mentioned Zaunites, she had to admit that, from Jayce's perspective, only Piltover citizens seemed to count as people.
However, realizing this did not make Lux feel discouraged.
In her two days of traveling through Piltover and Zaun, she had already witnessed enough magical realism. Jayce's prejudice against Zaunites was not too big of a problem—recalling what Klein had said, Lux decided to have a good talk with Jayce.
Unfortunately, at that moment, the visiting hours ended.
"Mr. Jayce." When the guard proactively reminded them about the time, Lux could only hastily leave a message: "If your understanding of Zaun changes, or if you truly have no other options, you are welcome to find me in Zaun—um, go to The Last Drop. I'll leave my contact information there."
After speaking, Lux was rushed out of the cell by the prison guard.
Then, it wasn't until Lux had left the prison and met Ino outside again that she suddenly realized she seemed to have forgotten the main purpose of her visit.
Without Klein by her side, Lux was clearly somewhat unaccustomed, to the point of forgetting the most crucial part.
"So, you listened to Jayce talk about his ideals for a long time, but you didn't ask him about the Enlightenment Crystal?" After Lux recounted her experience in the cell, Klein said with a helpless tone, "You have no idea where his Enlightenment Crystal came from, or if he has any more in stock?"
"I couldn't help it." Lux pouted somewhat helplessly. "Visiting hours were limited; I didn't have time to ask."
"...You, you!" Klein snorted. "In that case, we'll still need to pay a little attention to Jayce's Judgment, but from what you've said, Jayce might not be a lost cause after all."
"Try to get him to come to Zaun with us?"
"More or less." Klein pondered for a moment. "But now is not the time to think about these things. Everything must wait until Jayce's verdict is handed down."
...
Lux's visit was not very successful.
And because of her unsuccessful visit, Finn, far away in Zaun, was in a frenzy.
After Lux left Zaun, a skilled tracker hid in the shadows of buildings, watching her enter Blue Haze Manor from a distance.
This guy was familiar with the terrain and maintained a considerable distance from Lux, so much so that neither Lux nor Ino noticed these few individuals moving stealthily.
And Klein, who shared Lux's perspective, naturally also did not realize that someone was following them.
Because Blue Haze Manor belonged to a "high-end residential area," this tracker did not go deeper but reported the information to Finn.
Upon receiving this news, Finn couldn't help but frown.
"Blue Haze Manor? All the clans have vacation resorts there; this news is useless! Didn't you see which building they entered?"
"Don't even think about it; couldn't see." The hired Mr. Shadow snorted. "I can only tell you Blue Haze Manor. If you want me to get closer... it'll cost more!"
Although Finn was extremely displeased with this kind of price gouging, he knew the quality of his subordinates well. They were good for fighting, but for tracking, they were a bit out of their depth—professional matters should be left to professionals.
So, no matter how dissatisfied, Finn eventually threw a bag of gold to the other party.
"I want useful information. Find out which family's vacation manor she's staying in!" Finn snorted coldly. "You are Silco's most reliable guys!"
"Silco has plenty of reliable people." The other party casually took the gold hex. "Don't use him to pressure me. He's my boss, but he has nothing to do with you!"
Although he said it had nothing to do with him, with the money in hand, Mr. Shadow reliably stepped up his efforts—the next morning, when Lux walked out of the main gate of Blue Haze Manor, he again followed her from a distance.
This guy had already planned it out: no matter where Lux went, he would just follow from a distance the whole time. When Lux and Ino returned to Blue Haze Manor, he would disguise himself as a tourist and get close to find out their address.
The plan itself was fine.
But he never expected that Lux's destination today... was Piltover's prison!
Watching Lux and Ino enter the Piltover prison together after registering, Mr. Shadow was stunned.
How was he supposed to stake out now?
It's important to know that Piltover's Stillwater Prison is not within the city, but on an isolated island. The boats going to this isolated island all have separate numbers and dock at special piers!
Forget about staking out near the prison; even staying near the pier is not allowed. This place is full of patrolling prison Enforcers!
Mr. Shadow, a person who constantly walks the line between black and white, knew very well that in Piltover, Enforcers were merely high-ranking security guards. The people you truly couldn't afford to offend were either the guards of the great clans or the security personnel in certain important locations.
The former is easy to understand; those magnates are all very protective of their lives, so their guards are naturally not mediocre.
As for the latter... Piltover's Ecliptic Vaults, high-security prisons, and key laboratories, for example, are forbidden zones!
Staking out the prison's perimeter?
What a joke.
Watching Lux board the boat to Stillwater Prison, Mr. Shadow decisively abandoned the mission and then quickly found Finn.
The expectant Finn thus received news that left him utterly bewildered.
"That guy went to Piltover's Stillwater Prison. I can't stake it out—the extra money you gave me will be considered the fee for this piece of information."
Klein's Small Class · Mr. Shadow:
Mr. Shadow is Finn's fellow countryman, also from Ionia, and currently works for Silco.
No one knows the reason he left Ionia—though some judge from the frequency of his visits to Dark Alley prostitutes that he might have been exiled for some unsavory reasons.
And to this claim, he neither admitted nor denied it.